Hour 36: #Diverseathon & #OwnVoices

Today is the start of #Diverseathon, a week-long readathon that encourages you to read books by…you guessed it…diverse authors, particularly focusing on #ownvoice. If you’re not familiar with it, #ownvoices describes books written by authors that identify with the same marginalized group as the protagonists that they’re writing. This could include authors that identify as and are writing characters that are POCs, disabled, LGBTQ+, non-cisgender, etc.

The intention is two-fold: 1) reading #ownvoices books sends a message to the publishing community (which is traditionally, white, able-bodied, straight, and cisgender) that these books have audiences and encourage them to publish more of them, and 2) reading about characters from marginalized groups expands your own awareness of diversity and empathy, something I think we can all benefit from.

Yep, sorry, bucko, you’re wrong.

So this hour’s challenge is to post a comment with your favorite #ownvoices recommendations, or if you have a photo of your recommendations, post a comment with a link to that photo. Give your fellow readers some suggestions for diverse books, and think about joining #diverseathon this week.

Here are a selection of diverse and #ownvoices titles from my shelves:

What’s on your list? Let me know below!

The winner of our Hour 30 challenge (who not only posted a photo of rainbow books, but all books featuring LGBTQ characters too!) is:

rezgirlreads

Thanks to your amazing rainbow photos, I’m donating $78 to the Human Rights Campaign. And Jenna and Rachel are matching that amount! So the campaign will be getting $234 total. Great job, everyone!

This is what I posted on my instagram and on my Litsy account (@astridstars) These are the diverse books I own which I’m excited to read but also makes me realize I need to add more diverse and own voices book to my shelves.

I’ve got to say The Namesake by Jhumpa Lahiri. It helped me understand by Indian-American best friend better. Her son is even named Nikhil! (Coincidence on the name, but my best friend loves Lahiri’s books too.) We read The Lowlands at the same time while living 3,000 miles apart. 💙📚

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
Evicted by Matthew Desmond
Persephone by Marjane Satrapi
March by John Lewis
Muslim Girl: A Coming of Age by Amani Al-Khatahtbeh
Lab Girl by Hope Jahren
It’s What I Do by Lynsey Addario

Reading Heroine Complex by Sarah Kuhn, who is half-Asian like me! The protagonist is also half-Japanese and is one of the few ladies Ive been able to read about who share experiences similar to my own life!